The smallest colony of black-browed albatross lives within Admiralty Sound. This group of only 48 nesting pairs is also this bird’s only landlocked colony on record.

Alejandro Vila/WCS

Man & Bird Photo

The conservationists checked the health of the adult black-browed albatrosses, and placed identification bands on their legs. They also marked all of the birds’ nests during the survey.

Alejandro Vila/WCS

Grey headed albatross Photo

A grey-headed albatross gave the researchers a pleasant surprise, sincethis rare species has never been recorded in the Chilean channels.

Alejandro Vila/WCS

Team Seal Photo

The expedition team named the first male elephant seal they tagged “Koy,” which means “sea” in the language of the Selk’nam, the now extinct native people of Patagonia. Researchers affixed satellite tags on seals in order to track their movement patterns.

Alejandro Vila/WCS

Seal Tag Photo

A juvenile, female elephant seal, like this one here, once swam more than 5,000 miles in 228 days. Her journey illustrates why WCS conservationists are working across the Patagonian seascape to ensure the safety of these animals throughout their travels.

Alejandro Vila/WCS

The Argentine marine environment is both productive and harsh, ranging from marshy lowlands in the north to windswept cliffs and glaciers in the south, with adjacent waters varying in temperature from subtropical to sub-Antarctic. The southernmost point on the continent, known as Tierra del Fuego, which straddles Argentina and Chile, is beset by some of the world’s most tumultuous weather, which has resulted in numerous shipwrecks throughout recorded history. Isolated and sparsely inhabited, these shores harbor some of the world’s most spectacular concentrations of wildlife.

The region remains remote and wild. Though it has suffered the effects of oil extraction and transport and over-fishing, it still provides critical habitat for huge colonies of Magellanic penguins, as well as cormorants, albatrosses, elephant seals, southern right whales, sea lions, and fish such as hake and Patagonian toothfish. The living resources of the area, particularly fish and squid, are of major economic importance. The rich marine life of the southwest Atlantic ecosystem also sustain breeding and feeding aggregations of albatross, penguins, whales, and seals. The Southwest Atlantic marine ecosystem encompasses the Jason Islands in the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, home to a spectacular breeding seabird community, including the largest colony of black-browed albatrosses in the world, with over 140,000 breeding pairs.

Fast Facts

Spanning 700,000 square miles, the Patagonian Large Marine Ecosystem, which contains and surrounds the Patagonian Shelf, is one of the largest and richest marine ecosystems in the world.

Magellanic penguins number over one million pairs and nest almost exclusively on the coast of Argentina in over 50 colonies.

Almost one third of the world’s remaining southern right whales breed in waters along the coast of Patagonia.

Challenges

The Patagonian Large Marine Ecosystem has a history of exploitation for oil production and commercial fishing, which has resulted in a reduction of breeding populations and habitat degradation. Many species are in decline and are now globally threatened.

The principal threat to the region’s marine wildlife is the rapidly expanding South Atlantic fishery. Unsustainable, illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing by commercial fleets threatens many fish and squid species found on the continental shelf and slope off Argentine Patagonia, and adversely impact wildlife higher up the food chain. Conservationists are concerned that renewed pressure from the fishing industry on recovering stocks of hake, in addition to shrimp, squid and Patagonian toothfish (better known as Chilean sea bass), will impact wildlife that depend on these resources to feed themselves and their young.

Other threats include pollution, climate change, human disturbance, wildlife diseases, and the introduction of non-native species. There is a need for continued education to build upon increasing public awareness of the value of preserving marine ecosystems.

WCS Responds

WCS began working in coastal Patagonia in the 1960s, conserving and conducting research on southern right whales. In the 1980s, we expanded our efforts to protect the other spectacular colonies of marine mammals and seabirds, including the southern elephant seals of Peninsula Valdes and the Magellanic penguins of Punta Tombo as well as other birds such as cormorants, gulls, and terns.

The Argentine coast is a focus of over a dozen longstanding WCS projects that have been instrumental in generating new information on wildlife, as well as the creation of new protected areas on the coast and increasing community awareness of wildlife. Today, WCS’s conservation efforts on the coast even include the protection of the largest parrot colony in the world, which resides in the cliffs that face the ocean near Viedma in northern Patagonia. Our Sea and Sky project is helping protect the health of the Patagonian Sea and inspiring local interest in ocean conservation. Working with our partners, we have helped improve ecosystem management for this vast stretch of the southwest Atlantic Seascape—an epicenter of biological productivity.

In 2009, WCS and Birdlife International released an Atlas of the Patagonian Sea, which contains the most accurate maps ever assembled for this ecosystem and
shows key migratory corridors for the region's wildlife inhabitants, including albatross, petrels, penguins, fur seals, the South
American sea lion, and the southern elephant seal.

WCS Projects

The Patagonian Sea’s fertile expanse is both a haven for wildlife and a magnet for the fishing industry. WCS has worked to influence conservation policy here since the 1970s. Our Sea and Sky Initiative promotes sustainable management of the region’s fisheries and identifies priority areas for conservation.

From the Newsroom

Argentina has created its first open-ocean protected area, Burdwood Bank. This sanctuary in the Patagonian Sea will protect whales, penguins, and rare cold corals. WCS commends Argentina’s government on the achievement, and thanks local partners of the Forum of NGOs.

WCS track the epic journey of “Jackson,” a young male elephant seal. Elephant seals are potential indicators of marine ecosystem health and may show how climate change influences the distribution of prey species in Patagonia’s oceans.